Mother Road Revisited:
Route Sixty-Six Then and Now
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© Natalie Slater
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U.S Route 66 was one of the first official highways, established in 1926, the highway connected Chicago Illinois to Santa Monica CA, traversing Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Route 66 was also known as The Mother Road and America's Main Street, as it literally went down every main street in all the towns it intersected, and brought business and prosperity to the communities along the way. Photographer Natalie Slater traveled the Historic Route 66 in her revamped 1964 Shasta, collecting vintage postcards and rephotographing the locations. She then combined the two pictures into a single image that shows both the new parts and the vintage aspects of the scene. The resulting collage dramatizes the transformations that have shaped the Route over the years: once one-way streets now show two-way traffic, and swimming pools brimming with guests have given way to abandoned lots. This project is an effort to show what America has done to its once booming American symbol, the “Mother Road.”
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Mother Road Revisited: Route 66 Then and Now aims to explore the idea of travel and American culture through interactive photography. The exhibition consists of vernacular photographs taken in the 1950s and 60s along Route 66 are paired with contemporary photographs Natalie Slater shot along the modern day Route 66, from the exact same location and vantage point. The images are backlit, and overlaid inside interactive light boxes featuring a vintage 1950s dimmer switch from a truck; when the light is off, the viewer sees a black and white vintage image of Route 66, when the light is switched on the superimposed color contemporary photo appears. The show consists of 18 lightboxes measuring 12in x 19in x 1in each. Mother Road Revisited has been featured in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Houston Center for Photography and Living Arts of Tulsa. It has won best of show in the Oklahoma Visual Artist Coalition.
Number of photographs: 36 photographs (displayed in 18 light boxes)
Rental fee: $3500
Rental fee: $3500